Personal Health Records: A guide for clinicians

1. Table of contents
1. 1.1. Front matter
2. 1.2. What is a PHR?
3. 1.3. Your patients
  1. 1.3.1. Sharing data with your patient
  2. 1.3.2. Protecting your patient’s privacy
  3. 1.3.3. Patient communities
4. 1.4. Your work
  1. 1.4.1. PHRs and clinical teams
  2. 1.4.2. Educating patients
  3. 1.4.3. Saving time in your clinic
5. 1.5. Your practice
  1. 1.5.1. Technology
  2. 1.5.2. Law
  3. 1.5.3. Finance
6. 1.6. The future
7. 1.7. Back matter

Cover.PHR.jpg Personal Health Records: A guide for clinicians, by Dr. Mohammad Al-Ubaydli. 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Personal health records (PHRs) are the most disruptive development in health care since the Mayo Clinic provided all its physicians with access to the medical notes of all its patients. Now patients will share access with clinicians.

For many clinicians, this is an exciting opportunity to work better with our patients. PHR technology arrives, not a moment too soon, to help us deal with our patients’ multiple, complex and unique illnesses. For patients, the technology is a welcome aid to taking control of their health. It is ideally suited for coordinating care amongst multiple specialists and institutions.

But with change come challenges. How do you share data with your patient while maintaining their privacy? How do you include these online tools with your busy schedule? How much will it cost to your existing spending on information technology? And can you get paid for doing all this extra work?

Personal Health Records for Clinicians answers all these questions and more. Learn how to combine convenience with security online; how PHRs can save your time; how to buy software for your clinic that includes PHRs at no extra cost; and how your health insurance company will pay you for working with PHRs.

Front matter

What is a PHR?

What is a PHR? Why should you use one? How should you use it? How much does it cost? How can you get paid to use it?

Your patients

Sharing data with your patient

How do you share data with a patient? When should you not share data? What data should patients share with you?

Protecting your patient’s privacy

Once you have given out data about your patient, you can never take it back. How to be sure that the person you are giving data is the person who they say they are. And how to confirm that the patient is happy for you to give data to this person.

Patient communities

How to participate in online communities for patients. How to promote your services to these patients. How to teach these patients. How to learn from these patients. How to conduct academic research online.

Your work

PHRs and clinical teams

PHRs work best when the whole clinical team uses them, and when the patient is part of that team. How to train your staff. How to allocate responsibilities to team members. How to maximize efficiency and minimize duplication. How to maintain and improve safety.